Alice in the Country of Hearts Volume 2 by QuinRose and Hoshino Soumei
I continue to be weirdly fascinated by this dating sim manga set in the world of Alice in Wonderland. I was hoping that some of the metatextual elements that I saw in the first volume would be expanded on in the second. This didn’t exactly happen, but there was enough world building in the second volume that I want to keep on reading. I think this manga is like vanilla ice cream made excellent by some awesome raspberry melba sauce. The dating sim core of the story isn’t so great, but there is enough plot and character development in place to make me eagerly want to read it despite that shortcoming.
One of the things I liked about the second volume was that there were more elements that reflected the source material. The volume opens with Alice attending a nighttime tea party at the Hatter’s mansion. It seems like she’s a little more relaxed in Wonderland, taking time to tease Eliot (the March Hare) about his insistence that he isn’t a rabbit despite his ears and fondness of carrot cake. Peter White’s relentless pursuit of Alice continues, but I felt like his speech patterns incorporated more rhyming so I enjoyed the reference to the original White Rabbit.
While the first volume set up Alice’s “game” in Wonderland, the second volume makes it clear that there is plenty of danger for Alice to be concerned about. Julius’ work at the clock tower involves serving as a mortuary for the secondary characters that inhabit Wonderland. When they die and turn into shadows or “after images”, they leave only their ticking clock hearts behind. Julius repairs clocks, giving characters new identities and erasing their old personalities as they are reborn. Ace, the easygoing knight with no sense of direction works for Julius and he is extremely overzealous in his duties as a clock collector.
Part of the motivation behind all the characters chasing after Alice is also explained. Since she’s an outsider from beyond Wonderland she represents their only chance at change. If this was a typical dating sim manga all the male characters would be lost in adoration for Alice immediately. However this isn’t exactly the case. Ace and Peter get into a standoff over Alice, and Ace informs Peter that he doesn’t love Alice, but he does find her interesting. Alice comments to Ace that he doesn’t truly care about her, because if he did he wouldn’t be grabbing her to use as a bullet shield. While the first volume was somewhat frenetically paced, the second volume features Alice getting to know all the characters a bit better.
Honestly, the fact that I still enjoyed the second volume says a lot for this manga. I’ve generally been bored by the first volumes of other dating sim manga that I’ve tried to read like La Corda D’Oro or Haruka Beyond the Steam of Time. So while I don’t think Alice in the Country of Hearts approaches the levels of quality of my favorite series, it does stand out as being an excellent example of its sub-genre, with a surprising amount of world building and thematic depth. I’m definitely on board for the third volume to see where this story is going.
Natsume’s Book of Friends Volume 1 by Yuki Midorikawa
I always tend to like manga about yokai or spirit hunters, especially when they incorporate interesting storylines and unexpected character designs. Natsume’s Book of Friends seems like a great addition to the yokai genre of manga. Natsume is a boy who was passed around from relative to relative after his parents died. People didn’t want to get close to him because he acted strangely due to his visions of sprits. As a teen Natsume is living with a new family and has just transferred to a new school. Yokai hound him, calling him “Reiko.” Natsume runs away to a nearby shrine where he meets a powerful spirit who has taken the form of a lucky cat statue. Natsume discovers that his grandmother Reiko had the same abilities as him, except she used to beat up Yokai when she was lonely. She captured their names in a book which gave her power over them. Natsume has now inherited this “Book of Friends” and he has the power to release the captured yokai by munching down on the page that contains their names and exhaling. Natsume calls the cat Nyanko Sensei and they strike a slightly ominous bargain. The cat will aid Natsume as he attempts to give the names back, but if Natsume dies unexpectedly the cat will inherit the book and its power.
I always enjoy seeing different illustrations of yokai. Midorikawa’s illustrations range from delicate to surreal. Some of the spirits look almost human and signal their otherworldliness by wearing masks or fabric over their faces. Others have cyclops eyes or long hair that almost covers their bodies. Nyanko Sensei’s usual form may be that of a lucky cat, but is actual appearance as a giant feline spirit reveals his true power. I enjoyed the developing relationship between Nyanko and Natsume. Nyanko keeps commenting about Natsume’s weakness as he expends energy in giving back the yokai their autonomy. Nyanko threatens to consume Natsume, but I think he secretly enjoys having a human companion to boss around. The rural setting of the manga gives it a pastoral feel, as Natsume is often being chased through forests or finding shrines in a field.
My favorite stories in the collection explored the connection between yokai and humans. A tiny shrine spirit who wears a noh mask has shrunk as his worshipers have died off or lost faith. Only a sick old woman named Hana still makes offerings at his shrine. The spirit comments “I’ve always felt that humans were such sweet creatures.” I always think it is a good sign in a first manga volume when it concludes on a strong story. By far my favorite story in Natsume’s Book of Friends was the final one, about the spirit of a swallow who wants to visit a man who helped her when she was a fledgling. Natsume ends up playing fairy godmother to the swallow’s Cinderella, as he enters a yokai contest to win a special kimono that will allow her to take human form for one night and visit the man that she has cherished in her memory for twenty years.
I thought it was refreshing that Natsume’s Book of Friends was published under the Shojo Beat imprint. It isn’t about high school romance, and it has a boy as a main character! I’d like to see the human aspect of Natsume’s life explored more in future volumes. There were brief glimpses of him falling asleep in school and the perplexed reactions of his classmates, but it looks like Natsume might be inching towards making more friends who aren’t yokai. I’m going to be on the lookout for the next volume of this series. This manga would be a good pick for fans of Mushishi or Dokebi Bride.
All the manga blogs love All My Darling Daughters, and I am no exception. This single volume would be a great first pick for anyone interested in sampling Fumi Yoshinaga’s work if they haven’t already. I sometimes have mixed feelings towards volumes of manga short stories perhaps due to the fact that for books I tend to read far more novels than short stories, and it is a rare short story collection that I keep in the house knowing that I’m going to read it again and again. Some manga anthology collections are just collections of back-up stories that are only loosely linked thematically, but this manga is extremely cohesive. All My Darling Daughters focuses on the lives of women at varying stages of their lives, and it is one of those works that I can see myself rereading for years to come.
The first story introduces Yukiko, a career woman who still lives with her mother. Yukiko’s life takes a dramatic turn when her mother Mari decides that she’s going to live her life the way she wants to after recovering from cancer. Mari marries an actor three years younger than her daughter and brings him home. Yukiko views her new “dad” with an incredible amount of suspicion, and the situation exaggerates the tension between Yukiko and Mari. Yukiko ends up moving out to live with her boyfriend and starts a new chapter in her own life. The relationship between Yukiko and Mari is sometimes sarcastic and acerbic but there is obviously a lot of caring between them. While the the next story about a teacher and the girl who coerces him into having sex was one of the weakest of the bunch, I was quite happy to see Yukiko pop up at a bar yelling “Boo Boo!” at the teacher when he was describing his romantic exploits. Yukiko ends up being the thread that sews all the stories together, even if she appears in some of them only for a few panels.
The middle story in the collection is about Sayako, a woman who takes her grandfather’s advice “not to discriminate among people” to an extreme. Sayako is unselfish to a degree that might not be normal. She decides to go on arranged marriage meetings in order to find a husband, and the person who might be perfect for her is totally unexpected. Yukiko thinks about some of her old friends from school and their agreement to go to work in order to advance the cause of women’s rights. Some of their lives didn’t turn out the way they predicted in high school. The final story in the collection returns to Yukiko and Mari, as Yukiko learns some of the ways her grandmother influenced her mother.
I enjoyed the ways Yoshinaga portrayed her characters’ lives. While there is humor present, her women firmly live in the real world. Endings aren’t always happy and there is sometimes a sense of loss that lingers even when to all outward appearances everything looks fine. I always like Yoshinaga’s art because she has a such a distinct style. She uses a line in her drawings that is deceptively lose, giving some of her illustrations the immediacy of a sketchbook. The art in All My Darling Daughters seems a little more polished and worked over than some of her other works, with more tone and details used in the backgrounds of the panels.
By far the one moment out of the whole collection that will stick in my memory is when Sayako is caring for her sick niece. Her niece throws up in Sayako’s hands, and Sayako is remarkably unconcerned about being covered with vomit. I think holding out your hands so your kid can vomit in them is a universal parenting experience. I remember when one of my kids vomited in my hands I started thinking “Well, I really am a Mom if I am catching puke. I hope he isn’t coming down with a stomach virus. Where is a napkin?” Sayako’s relatively serene reaction to caring for her sick niece illuminates her personality and serves to illustrate why she arrives at a momentous decision about how to lead her life. Yoshinaga’s illustration of a trial that most parents go through allowed me to feel an immediate connection to what Sayako was experiencing. I think portraying moments that forge a connection between reader and fictional character is what great writers do when they are at the peak of their skills.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
I was happy to see that the title I nominated, Ken Saito’s Name of the Flower, made it on to the final list. Librarians do use lists like these when making decisions about what books they should order for their library. So if you are a comics or manga fan and feel like advocating for one of your favorite titles and you think it has teen appeal, I encourage you to nominate it next year.
I previously enjoyed Asano’s Solanin. What a Wonderful World is an earlier work, but I didn’t realize until I read Shaenon Garrity’s review over at about.com that Asano was only 22 when he started working on this manga. It is unusual to get such a polished and accomplished work from such a young creator. In some ways What a Wonderful World seems like a proto-Solanin. The lives of twentysomethings are explored in short stories in this work, while Solanin focused more closely on a small group of interconnected characters.
A girl named Toga has always been “the reliable one” among her group of friends, but she drops out of school and struggles with the idea of reactivating her musical ambitions. A schoolgirl engages in a dangerous contest to win social capital. A man briefly visits his daughter and ex-wife in a park. Aimless ronin studying for their college entrance exams have a memorable encounter with a basket case they meet in the street. Some of the characters are seen again briefly in other stories, making the lives of the different people in What a Wonderful World seem interconnected. The elements of surrealism that I enjoyed in Solanin are also present in this manga. Toga’s pet turtle talks to her, and in one of her dreams he slips out of his shell and goes off to live his own life. Crows offer life advice, and the men in plush bear costumes inexplicably appear in at least two stories.
While reading about the lives of people who haven’t figured out what they want to might seem like an invitation to wallow in ennui, this manga lives up to its title. Asano captures the small moments that people use to define themselves. A change in hairstyle, the realization that the reliability of a relationship can be a comfort, and the loss of an apartment each contribute to a moment of realization that lets someone move on with their life. As I was reading the manga and enjoying the combination of the prosaic and surreal in Asano’s art I realized that I was especially struck by the pacing and paneling. There was frequently a small jolt or surprise right before I’d turn the page to read the conclusion of a story, and this lent a dynamic feel to the manga even when some of the stories were just short sketches.
It is probably unfair for me to compare this manga with Solanin when I’ve only read the first volume, but I think if I were to recommend only one Asano work, I’d go with Solanin just because the focus of the single volume lets the reader feel more connected to the characters. What a Wonderful World is still very good. I wish it had been packaged the same way Solanin was, instead of being released in two separate volumes. Now I really want to see more of Asano’s work translated!
Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold
Up in Smoke by Katie MacAlister
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner – loved this book, am working on the sequel now.
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr – selection for my YA book club this month. Set in SLC so reading about some of the local landmarks was amusing.
Irish Trilogy by Nora Roberts – sometimes it is nice to just read three books over a weekend.
Manga and Graphic Novels
Itzakura Na Kiss #1
Butterflies, Flowers #1
Let Dai #1-3
Ooku #2
20th Century Boys #6
VB Rose #7
INVU #5
Maid Sama #3
Pumpkin Scissors #2, 3
What a Wonderful World #1
Portrait of M and N #1
Deadman Wonderland #1
St Dragon Girl #1
Alice in the Country of Hearts #1
Karakuri Odette #2
Deadman Wonderland Volume 1 by Jinsei Kataoka and Kazuma Kondou
This title wasn’t on my radar before, but when I got it the cover design immediately caught my attention. Who was this disturbed boy with his hands on his head wearing a collar with a bar code? I was drawn into the story further when tons of action was packed into the first 20 pages. Let’s see…it is the future, there is a terrible earthquake that has placed most of Tokyo underwater, and the most popular tourist attraction is a privately operated prison called Deadman Wonderland. Ganta is having a normal day at school talking to his friends when he sees an armored red man dressed in a tattered cape floating outside the classroom window. The red man promptly slaughters everyone in the classroom except Ganta and implants a red stone in Ganta’s body. Ganta wakes up to see random body parts belonging to his classmates scattered all over the desks. As the only survivor of the massacre Ganta is promptly convicted, given the death penalty, and sent to serve his sentence in Deadman Wonderland.
When Ganta arrives at the prison the story really begins. He’s bewildered by his circumstances and semi-suicidal. Prisoners have to compete to obtain Cast Points which they can trade for better food or other items. The special collars the prisoners wear inject them with a poison that kills them in three days unless they eat some special “candy.” So every day in Deadman Wonderland is a race against an already imposed death sentence. As Ganta begins to adjust to his new environment he makes a friend of sorts in the albino girl Shiro. She randomly pops up out of nowhere and seems a little deranged, but she knows how the system works and tries to help Ganta in her own way.
Deadman Wonderland is a tourist attraction because the prisoners work at deadly carnival games just like Death Race 2000. The prisoners are obsessed with getting better food or privileges, which helps the wardens control the prison population. Ganta’s unique situation causes him to be singled out for extra punishment and the stone implanted in his chest ensures that he’ll be seeing the mysterious Red Man again. The art is slick although to my eyes it lacks a distinct style. The character design for the Red Man was interesting. This manga has the large bosomed prison warden you might expect from a shonen manga, but I was intrigued by Azami, a girl who tries to resist the bullying prison subculture. Shiro’s character of loony girl in a body stocking was a little grating, but I was amused by some of her insane habits like talking about afternoon snacks as prisoners die around her or getting beat up for Ganta with a grin on her face.
This is the type of manga that I think would have a lot of commercial appeal, which I’m guessing will be magnified once the recently announced anime version of the manga comes out. The combination of a unique setting, a compelling mystery, and a dark sense of humor will make Deadman Wonderland appeal to readers who want something a little different from their sci-fi shonen manga. Many manga take a couple volumes to really get the story going. Since the creators packed the exposition into a few short pages and immediately explored the unique rules of the prison, I felt like I wanted to read more when I reached the last page of this manga. It is defiantly more edgy and intelligent than the typical shonen manga. At 220 pages, this manga is a little bit thicker than the typical volume due to the inclusion of a preview of the new series Hanako and the Terror of Allegory by Sakae Esuno, creator of Future Diary. There are color pages included in the front of the manga and a few bonus omake pages with joke panels and Deadman Wonderland advertisements in the back of the book. Deadman Wonderland would be a good manga to recommend to Death Note or Future Diary fans looking for something similar in tone.
I inexplicably felt compelled to share the trailer from Born To Fight, a movie about a group of Thai athletes who foil an evil terrorist plot to take over a rural village by using their sports skills. There is lots of face kicking!
This cute fantasy/martial arts manga is a good choice for the younger set. I seem to remember this title getting a few lukewarm reviews on other manga blogs. While St. Dragon Girl might not be for everyone, it will be a great title to check out for younger teens or anyone in touch with their inner 12 year old.
Momoka is the heir to a martial arts dojo. Ryuga is her childhood friend who happens to be a master of magic. Together, they fight crime! Momoka and Ryuga maintain the pretense that they are platonic friends, but there is obviously something going on under the surface. Momoka enjoys beating up peeping toms. Ryuga throws around paper spells like a dedicated litterbug. When a Serpent King threatens to make Ryuga’s cousin and Momoka’s friend Shunran his bride, Ryuga summons a dragon. The spell goes wrong and the dragon spirit possesses Momoka’s body, thus giving her access to incredible power. Ryuga and Momoka team up to fight an assortment of mystical beings.
I don’t expect super-enlightened gender politics in shoujo manga, but it was a little disappointing that for someone who is supposed to be a competent martial artist, Momoka needs to be rescued by Ryuga so often. Also, Ryuga controls Momoka’s access to the dragon’s power by sealing up the spirit that possesses her body so she can only draw on the dragon when he releases it. These quibbles aside, St. Dragon Girl is filled with lighthearted fantasy fun as the duo team up to fight demon cats, unexpected relatives, and a teacher with hypnotic powers. As Momoka and Ryuga spend more time together, their romantic relationship begins to progress.
Matsumoto’s art reminds me of a slightly less detailed version of Arina Tanemura’s style. Everyone has big sparkling eyes. Ryuga is Chinese, and Matsumoto uses this as an excuse to give the characters Chinese-influenced costumes. I thought some of the fight sequences were a little muddled, but the flow of events throughout the manga is clear and easy to follow. I’m glad I sampled this manga, but I don’t think I’m hooked enough to want to sign on for 8+ volumes of the series. There’s not a whole lot of dramatic tension, because Ryuga and Momoka clearly like each other so much. I’m guessing that a series of wacky events and misunderstandings will conspire to prevent them from really dating until the series wraps up. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to a 12-13 year girl old wanting to read something fun. This book is rated for teens, but there’s very little objectionable content in it, just some teasing about bra sizes and some kissing scenes.
